Crews work on lingering Ulster County power outages

Michael Novinson

Wednesday

Dec 29, 2010 at 2:00 AM

ULSTER — Cooking by candlelight, family sleepovers and napping under the blankets were some of the coping mechanisms for the several thousand Ulster County residents and businesses without power early this week.About 4,100 Hudson Valley residents woke up Tuesday without power, and 267 power outages remained in northern Ulster County as of 5:15 p.m., according to Central Hudson spokesman John Maserjian.

ULSTER — Cooking by candlelight, family sleepovers and napping under the blankets were some of the coping mechanisms for the several thousand Ulster County residents and businesses without power early this week.

About 4,100 Hudson Valley residents woke up Tuesday without power, and 267 power outages remained in northern Ulster County as of 5:15 p.m., according to Central Hudson spokesman John Maserjian.

Power was expected to be restored to all Central Hudson customers by 9 p.m. on Tuesday.

Several dozen residents of the Seven Greens Senior Citizens Housing Complex in Ulster spent about 10 hours Monday without electricity.

"You had to put your coat and gloves on," said agitated resident Genevieve Valk, who spent several hours at her daughter's Kingston home to escape the cold.

The temperature in one of the apartments had dropped to 57 degrees by Monday evening.

"I was so cold, I went to bed at 7 o'clock," said Barbara, who declined to give her last name. "I normally don't go to bed until midnight."

The medical-alert service for Alvina Monfett, 86, stopped working when a portion of the senior housing complex lost power. Monfett was glad she'd kept her old, corded telephone — she needed it to ask her daughter in Ruby to pick her up for the night.